Counterpoint
by Varyssa
Summary: A very angsty one shot about the capture of human slaves for the empire. Please r n r x


Counterpoint

I wasn't born for this you know. It wasn't always like this. It hasn't always been slavery and servitude. There was a time when we were free.

For a lot of us here that was before we can remember, before vampires ruled the earth if such a time truly existed or whether it is the stuff of legends. For me that time was just a few years ago. I was free, I served no one save myself. I did everything for myself and my family. We knew that it was different for the others; ours was one of the last safe havens for humans, the others had fallen leaving a few scattered citadels where the vampires couldn't reach us. That's what we thought, we thought that our defences were strong enough to withstand a vampire attack; we were surrounded by water, on the outskirts of the southern villages. We thought that the vampires were unaware of our existence or had more sense than to try and traverse the deep rivers that surrounded us.

What fools we were.

They knew all about us. They knew everything about the haven from the secret passages we used to hunt outside the walls to the lowest points of the river during the dry season. They weren't sparing us out of ignorance, we weren't safe from them at all, we were a breeding ground. Too late we found that they kept us safe and free for a reason. Humans in slavery have no reason to breed, on the contrary few believe that it is worth having a child to bring up into a world where humans are herded as cattle and those who are not worked to death are used as food for feasts. Some of them decide to have children, they decide that continuing the human race is worthy enough cause even if it is juts supplying them with a new food source but most of them realise that it's just not worth it.

Outside the city walls it is different. People are constantly having children; it is considered a duty, our duty to our species. Others may have fallen victims to the vampire reign of terror but we were free! Any children we had would grow up free! Free from a harsh slavish room. So we went on with our lives blissfully ignorant that they wanted us to multiply like rabbits. That was our true purpose in Kain's grand scheme of things. While the slaves went against every instinct, every longing in the frail human bodies to have children, to love and raise them, we encouraged it. Then when we least expected it, then again I don't think we ever could, they came for us.

They didn't come for us in the night as we had always supposed they would; they had no need. There were hundreds of them, all armed to the fangs with weapons they didn't intend on using. It was still light; I say light since they scorched the sky who can tell what time it really is? The sky is either slightly lighter or slightly darker its all the same in the end, endless black clouds. The river we had put all our faith into did nothing. I watched as they waded into the water and crossed it as easily as if it hadn't been there. Their skin was tainted blue and the water trickled off their skin as if they were human, it did not burn them as it once did. I suppose we were being punished for our arrogance. We had thought ourselves untouchable; we had become complacent behind our high walls and rivers of nothing. They showed us how pathetic we really were.

In the end it took them less than an hour to have us all rounded up in the citadel square. They knew everything about our haven even our hiding places. It wasn't difficult for them. They divided us into two, the old and the young. Anyone who looked like they could work well or had the body for it was set to work as slaves. We were split up and distributed evenly between the clans, "fresh blood". The old and the crippled were also divided between the brothers but they didn't live long enough to appreciate it. Most of them were eaten that very night, the others were chained up in the pantries waiting their inevitable fate.

I am a slave or at least I was. When they took us they beat us, they broke us down until there was nothing left in us but submission. But there was something else instilled in me. They took my family to the pantries; my mother was thrown to the raiding party before they left the citadel. They fell upon her like wild dogs, all composure thrown aside as they bit at her and tore at her flesh. Her screams resounded in my ears and do still now. Everyone here hates them but they will still follow their orders to the last. My hatred is too new, my pain to raw to be ignored. I say I was a slave. I'm not one of their fodder, waiting for the time where I am taken to someone where my neck will be bitten and they will drain everything out of me…even this poison. Poison is near impossible to get hold of; I'm still not sure how I managed it myself. I sold myself over and over again giving favours that made me glad my mother had died lest she saw how far I degraded myself. I think some of them weren't even human. God forgive me for letting one of them touch me and degrade me further. In the end it was worth it. I have a vial of poison, slow acting poison. I feigned exhaustion today, I dropped where I stood and nothing not even the beating could get me to move. In the end they deemed me useless and brought me here, the panty. A pitiful excuse of a room for pitiful excuses of people. My cellmates are not the talkative kind; they have resigned themselves to their fate and say nothing. Their eyes stay on the only door waiting for their demise. I sit in my chains and drink the poison when I hear them coming. I have angered the supervisor and so I'll be the first on the menu tonight. I don't mind, even if I only take one of those bastards with me then at least it'll be worth it.

Two vampires come in and briefly scan the room before they see me. As I had predicted they grab me harshly beneath the arms and drag me away. They do not pause to unlock my chains, rather than using the keys they use brute strength. I still have the shackles around my ankles when I am taken into the supervisor's main chamber. He barely looks at me, but nods to the attendants and then picks me up by one arm. He doesn't even glance up from the work he is doing as if I am nothing more than a snack. His fangs drive deep into my neck and I am surprised that the sensation does not hurt as much as I thought it might. It stings a little but after a while I am so light headed I barely notice or feel anything; just an awareness of an odd sensation in my neck as the blood is drawn from me. One thing is still burned into me though; my resolve. As I drop to the ground I manage a smile to myself. I am dying, I will be dead before they come and pick me from this room. But this vampire, this thing will be dead by nightfall, he took my blood and my poison into his body. Maybe I will inspire others or maybe I am just an insane remnant of a free world, either way I shall be reunited with my mother on this night, at the very least this action will secure me a place in heaven where there are no vampires and no slaves. Come to think of it, it sounds almost like that citadel I lived in just months ago…


End file.
